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Thursday, June 12, 2014

How to Grow Tomatoes in Pots

Tomatoes are one of the most frequent vegetables to be grown in pots. There are a number of factors to consider in selection of the type of tomatoes, pots and growing medium. An essential ingredient...

is compost.

There are some recently developed tomatoes with short internode spacing that are typically classified as "patio" tomatoes. They have full sized fruit, but the plants are shorter. These work well for pots.
Other candidates are early girl, celebrity and Roma tomatoes, which are all smaller tomatoes.

If you can manage it 10-15 gallon pots would be best, but 3-5 gallon pots can be managed if you water very regularly. Typically you would want to stake the plants. One help to water in a smaller pot would be to put a saucer under the pot so they would soak up water as needed.

The potting mix I like to use is 50% compost, 30% peat, 10% pearlite and 10% sand. Add a handful of organic fertilizer to each pot.

It is very important that you fertilize frequently with fish emulsion. Until tomatoes are heavy on the vine, you can sprinkle over the whole plant.